Best Practices: FastTrack Lists

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1 Best Practices: FastTrack Lists FastTrack lists are shared across agency users to provide a common list of resources grouped for quick access or to help standardize agency reports. By organizing these lists case managers will find common resources more quickly and agencies will be able to create more effective resource reports. This simple feature is a powerful way to organize common resources, but does require some planning within each agency. 1) Develop a plan to create and use of FastTrack lists in your agency 2) Identify criteria for selecting services 3) Organize resources in categories with meaningful names 4) Establish procedures to create, use, edit, and delete lists Whether your agency has a few users at a single location, or it is a large agency in multiple geographic locations, there are different approaches which may help plan to use this feature. Without a coordinated effort to identify and groups a single set of resources, each case manager may be recording resources differently which will make it more challenging to accurate capture how those resources were utilized. To help any agency begin to think about how they use FastTrack lists, three generic plans are included in this document. See which one fits best for your agency. Small agency (less than 10 users, single region) Medium agency (10-30 users, multiple regions) Large agency (more than 30 users, multiple regions or programs) FastTrack Lists Tips FastTrack lists help users to quickly record Referrals and Services Provided on a client record. This feature of the Client Registry allows users at a single agency (based on Agency ID) to create, view, or edit Fast Tacks shared lists. Lists are automatically shared within an agency, and should never be shared with all agencies in the FastTrack Service List Manager (MyTools) FastTrack lists for Referrals and Services Provided are managed separately, but work in exactly the same way. Lists are populated by Service Profiles in the Resource Database created by any agency. For more information, please see the Client Registry user guide. Best Practices: FastTrack Lists 1

2 Small Agency Scope: less than 10 users, single region At a small agency, responsibility for creating and maintaining lists could be handled collectively by all users. It may make sense for a single user to configure the initial lists and then let any case managers add resources. Changes in lists could be communicated informally amongst users or at regular staff meetings. Best Practices for Small Agencies All users share FastTrack lists which may be created, edited, or deleted by any user Services are grouped in FastTrack lists based on service type or need served List names are established and only changed when needed; new resources may be added to a list by any user Create specific Service Profiles in the Resource Database or use generic Service Profiles Tips for Developing FastTrack Lists Keep the list names simple and identical for both Referrals and Services Provided. Since the list name is not captured in the data exports only do not rely on the list name for any reporting purposes. Referrals: Housing Referrals Basic Needs Referrals Recovery Services Referrals Services Provided: Housing Provided Basic Needs Provided Recovery Services Provided Best Practices: FastTrack Lists 2

3 Medium Agency Scope: users, multiple regions In medium-size agencies a single user should be designated to create and maintain FastTrack lists based on the user input on the services most commonly used by their clients. These services should be grouped into categories which reflect how the case managers record the most popular resources. To avoid confusion users should agree to communicate with a designated FastTracks manager to make changes to the shared lists. As the number of users at an agency grows, users should refrain from creating and editing lists to avoid confusion with other users who rely on this feature. With a modest amount of effort this should make an agency s activities and more efficient and more predictable. Best Practices for Medium Agencies All users share a set of FastTrack lists which should only be created, edited, or deleted by a designated user Services are organized based on regions and service type or need served to most effectively meet case manager s needs A single user creates Service Profiles in the Resource Database or utilize existing Generic Service Profiles; there may be a resource manager Example FastTrack Titles Keep the list names simple and identical for both Referrals and Services Provided but create different lists for each program or region. The list names are used to organize and not captured in data exports do not rely on the list name for reporting purposes. If resources need to be reported out by region or program, be sure that those are properly identified in the name of the Service Profiles in the Resource Database. Referrals Baton Rouge Housing - Referrals Baton Rouge Basic Needs - Referrals Houston Housing - Referrals Houston Basic Needs - Referrals Services Provided Baton Rouge Housing - Provided Baton Rouge Basic Needs - Provided Houston Housing - Provided Houston Basic Needs - Provided Best Practices: FastTrack Lists 3

4 Large Agency Scope: 30+ users, multiple regions or programs In large-size agencies a single user should be designated to create and maintain FastTrack lists as well as all Service Profiles in the Resource Database. A formal process may be needed to determine the services most commonly used by clients and how to group these services. To maintain these lists, a process of gathering input from users for additions, changes, and deletions should be outlined. Best Practices for Large Agencies Each agency should have a designated FastTrack list coordinator, and one agency should designate a manager to coordinate use across each agency. Since lists are shared by agencies, each coordinator should be responsible for working with the manager to standardize lists Only users associated with a specific agency ID will be able to create, use, edit, or delete the FastTrack lists associated with that agency. Services can best be grouped in FastTrack lists based on service type or need served. Formal communication tools will be necessary to share changes in service listed in FastTrack. The FastTrack manager also coordinates all of the Service Profiles in the Resource Database for all agencies Example FastTrack Titles Referrals Baton Rouge Housing - Referrals Baton Rouge Basic Needs - Referrals Houston Housing - Referrals Houston Basic Needs - Referrals Grant-funded Program - referrals Services Provided Baton Rouge Housing - Provided Baton Rouge Basic Needs - Provided Houston Housing - Provided Houston Basic Needs - Provided Grant-funded Program - Referrals Best Practices: FastTrack Lists 4

5 Putting Reports Together FastTrack lists help to standardize Referrals and Services Provided within an agency to enable more effective reporting. With a little coordination, agencies will be able to use Export Wizard to report on all Referrals and Services Provided. When the Referrals or Services Provided are recorded in a uniform fashion it will allow for the reports to identify how resources are being utilized in that community. Services Provided Report Below is a simple recipe for generating a list of an agency s resources (including those not recorded with a FastTrack list). After you download the export, open with Excel and use the Pivot Table Wizard tool to group results by Agency Count, Service ID and Service Name/Assistance type. Section Fields Order Filter Sort Client Client ID 3 Case Management Affiliated Agency ID for current case 2 [contains] agency ID manager Services Provided Agency Name 3 Service ID 4 ascending Service Name / 5 Assistance Type Date Provided 1 [And] [on or after] select a date 3-6 months ago. Extended Learning: Excel To learn how to use Pivot Tables in Excel, please contact your agency technology support or view the Microsoft Excel help document: Pivot Table Reports Best Practices: FastTrack Lists 5